Mums hooked on baby smiles

Seeing their baby smile can trigger a natural high in a mother’s brain similar to that delivered by drugs or alcohol, new research has found.

Seeing their baby smile can trigger a natural high in a mother’s brain similar to that delivered by drugs or alcohol, new research has found.

According to The Australian, scientists at the Texas Children’s Hospital showed 28 new mothers pictures of their baby while hooked up to a magnetic resonance imaging scanner.

When shown pictures of their baby smiling, blood rushed to the pleasure centres of the mums’ brains. The happier the baby, the stronger the mother’s response.

According to Lane Strathearn, the researcher who conducted the study, the areas of the brain stimulated – the substantia nigra, striatum and frontal lobe – are also those that respond to alcohol and other drugs.

Get COVID-19 news you can use delivered to your inbox.

First Name

Last name

Email Address

You’ll also receive special offers from our partners. You can opt-out at any time.

“These are areas that have been activated in other experiments associated with drug addiction,” Strathearn says. “It may be that seeing your own baby’s smiling face is like a natural high.”

You can help keep SmartCompany free for everyone to read

Small and medium businesses and startups have never needed credible, independent journalism and information more than now.

That’s our job at SmartCompany: to keep you informed with the news, interviews and analysis you need to manage your way through this unprecedented crisis.

Now, there’s a way you can help us keep doing this: by becoming a SmartCompany Supporter.

Even a small contribution will help us to keep doing the journalism that keeps Australia’s entrepreneurs informed.

And it’s not all one-way traffic either. SmartCompany Super Supporters get to dial into our monthly editor’s meeting and attend a monthly, invite-only webinar with a big-name entrepreneur.